460                 A. M. E. REVIEW.

the dead were judged out of those things which were written
in the books, according to their works.  And the sea gave up
the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up
the dead which were in them: and they were judged every
man according to their works."
              III. Identical Body.
   In the next place we shall speak of the Apostle's concep-
tion of the resurrected body as being the identical body that
fell asleep in death.
  There were those Sadducees and philosophic sects in the
Pauline age, as in the time of Christ, who were always con-
cerned about occult problems, perplexing questions, and
other non-essentials, more than the vital issues of salvation.
Whether or not they put to him a direct question along this
line of the argument, he was acquainted, perhaps as few
others, with their technical and curious theories, (for he had
been a "Pharisee of the straitest sect) and says, in verse 35
of the 15th chapter of I Cor., "But some man will say, How
are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?"
Here he proceeds to give to us that beautiful similitude, the
manner and character of the resurrected body, (37-42),
"That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that
shall be, but bear grain, it may chance of wheat or of some
other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased
him, and to every seed its own body. All flesh is not the
same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another
flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.
There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but
the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terres-
trial is another.  There  is one glory of  the sun and
another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars:
for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also
is the resurrection of the dead."
  Then, apparently gathering inspiration, he speaks from
the 42d-45th verses more directly and emphatically illustrat-
ing the resurrected body, sown in death: "It is sown in cor-




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 1

Paul's Conception of the Resurrection

M.

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  01
Page Number:  456
Date:  07/1911